


Snowmelt

by glasscamellias



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Consensual Possession, Episode Prompto Spoilers, Forgiveness, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, MT Prompto Argentum, Post-Canon, Touchy-Feely, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 13:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17366807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscamellias/pseuds/glasscamellias
Summary: “Ever wonder if people, like, died here? And their tormented souls, just sorta, remained behind?”Prompto returns to a familiar place, the place that had created him but had never been home, and tries to bring his lost MT siblings into the Dawn.





	Snowmelt

After a decade of being neglected, the first employee dorm room Prompto finds is a huge mess. No squatters, of course, no broken glass or graffiti, but his steps kick up a cloud of dust. He has to brush off the first cot he reaches before he can collapse on it, all the air rushing out of him. It’s bare and ragged, and someone had taken the blankets, probably ages back, and almost everything else that isn’t nailed down—every weapons rack in the place is empty, and so are the shattered vending machines. Good for them; better that someone’s warmer for it, rather than letting them rot. Plus, he has to respect the sort of person who’d loot somewhere daemon-infested. Or haunted, if it was after the sun came back.

They left the pillows, though, all limp and mildewy. He can’t decide if it’s funny or sad and settles for shoving his to the floor. He brought a sleeping bag anyway, and lays it out over the cot. That way, he’s not really touching the cot at all, a place where a scientist had slept after long days of ruining innocent lives. Plus, he hasn’t seen any rats, but if they exist, they’re less likely to bug him up there than if he’s on the floor.

It’s been a long journey out there, and the First Magitek Production Facility has a way of eating up his energy the moment he walks through the door. He’s got the sleeping bag, and enough food for up to a week if he’s careful, and nowhere else to be. A phone put on silent so nobody tempts him to go home and forget about all this.

The facility is cold enough that Prompto crawls into the sleeping bag still in his parka, his snow pants, his doubled-up socks. He lines his boots up neatly at the side of the bed, still crusted with snow.

Everything is familiar enough now that it’s not hard to get to sleep. There’s not much left here to be scared by, not anymore.

It’s seamless, how his dreams shift from Noctis atop an iridescent chocobo with one hand holding a fishing pole and the other reaching down to him, to.... something quieter. He—it sits in the grass, body heavy. Another MT sits beside it. It’s raining, and the drops sound pleasant against metal armor. The air has an unfamiliar quality. It has been deployed, along with five others, but the intel was incorrect. There are no targets to be neutralized, and the ETA of the retrieving airship is a quarter of an hour, minimum.

There is a tiny thrill in sitting rather than standing at attention. A few troopers still are, but with the tree cover, it would hear the incoming ship in time to stand. The others will not report it for this. It watches the grass, the way droplets slide down each piece and to the ground. The edge of its boot touches the other MT’s leg. It idly wonders what grass and wet soil would feel like without the intrusion of heavy gauntlets...

MTs dream too, he’s learned that now. Since they have barely any life experience, not much to imagine, it’s mostly building onto their limited memories. Being deployed, wandering around without a target—he’s sure they experienced that, but... As he blinks awake, feeling the rising sun even in a windowless room, his first thought is that the MT probably didn’t let themself sit at all.

The second thought is realizing that they’re with him.

The feeling is pretty obvious now. At the start, years back, he hadn’t realized why he had puked up all the nice rations Ignis had made for him to bring, or why his head seemed so fuzzy, or why going outside into the afternoon sun had sent him into a screaming, thrashing fit that Aranea had taken as some weird type of seizure. The first MT ghost who had slipped under his skin had probably gone out of the world terrified as fuck, thanks to him.

He knows better these days. “Unit 05953234, model NH-01897,” he says quietly, wriggling to get his marked wrist uncovered and visible to their shared eyes. Showing them that he’s similar enough, that there’s a reason they’ve been drawn to him, that he’s a comrade and not a target. That they’re safe with him. He’s pretty sure each MT ghost is in a world of their own, not seeing the others, so he’s the first one they’ve seen in a long time. And it’s been so long that they don’t remember that he’s a “compromised unit,” if they were there for that mess at all.

“ _Unit 062....2....062—unit cannot complete designation_ ,” they say, voice echoing in his head. Maybe it’s sleepy brainfog, to the extent that an MT can get that, or it could be memory slipping after dying, which happens a lot with them. It’s not like they still have a branded wrist left to show him. But they’re scared. A damaged MT wasn’t good for much aside from a reformat to a shock trooper. Are they wondering where all the scientists are, and why Prompto isn’t already hurrying to report them?

“I know. I’m in charge of your maintenance and repair.” _I’m going to take care of you_. There’s some confusion, mostly about why they’re in his body, but his serial code apparently gives him seniority. Maybe they could tell from that how long ago he had been produced? An MT that lived that long has to be something special, in their mind, and this one is so desperate for guidance and orders that they’re ready to believe anything he says. They accept that their programming or consciousness or whatever has been put with him, maybe imagining that their body is being repaired at best, modified for a suicide mission at worst.

For right now, Prompto wants to keep laying down, at least for a while. He doesn’t feel super well-rested, a general, clinging ache and exhaustion now that he’s kinda getting on in years, but he’s spry in comparison to them, so tired that they’d stumble if they had a body that was _allowed_ to stumble. Spirits aren’t supposed to be in the living world, and definitely not for years, so it must be exhausting, just existing there. Hopefully this is restful for them, or at least calming to lay there for a while.

Plus he’s kinda woken up with a headache. It’s not _their_ fault per se, but having another person bouncing around in your head can get a little painful. The two of them have places to be, but not right now, so he hopes it’ll ease if he rests a little longer.

But resting isn’t the MT way, and they’re already getting antsy. He takes his hood and wool hat off, wondering if it’d help if he...

He’d like to think he’s past embarrassment, but it’s a lot easier to come here alone, so no one sees the things he does for the MTs. Getting caught stroking your own hair, for instance... They probably didn’t get to grow their own out before the helmets were fitted on permanently, but when he brushes his hand through, from the base of his skull to the front, his head falls back in shared, dazed pleasure. No head pets for MTs—or almost any contact at all, unless it was during battle. As he starts to massage his head, and them by extension, they get more confused, but in a happy-surprise kind of way.

(Probably it’s fucked up, to compare it to petting a spooked chocobo, but... Kinda the same principle.)

They don’t _ask_ , because of course not, but he might as well explain. “It’s maintenance—reduces neck and head pain, better range of motion.” Saying ‘it feels nice’ isn’t a good explanation for someone tortured and shaped into forgetting what _nice_ was. “Is it okay? Should I stop?” Most of the MTs he had met liked the touching, but there had been a few that got freaked out by more than a few brief pats. For some of them, touch starvation is like real starving, how a lot of food on a shriveled stomach is too much to handle.

This one, though, _this one_ responds with a wave of panic the moment he says the word “stop.” They shake his head so emphatically that it makes him dizzy and more achy, and he laughs, even though it hurts. “I’ll keep going, then.” That’s his go-ahead to really get into it, rubbing circles into his temples and slowly working his way back again. Barely a few minutes of that and they’re both a collective puddle of bliss. Must be nice after a lifetime of standing at attention, with all that metal on their head and neck.

It distracts them for a little while, but when he rolls to one side, intending to sit up and maybe rub out the tension in his shoulders, they remember where he’s brought them.

“ _Extended dormitory access is... forbidden to MT units?_ ” they try. The rules are probably blurring in their mind, but a lot of things were forbidden to MT units, so it’s a good guess. “ _Further maintenance should be taken to... to... elsewhere.”_ The memory decay is pretty sad. How long has this one been gone?

“It’s alright. You’re clear to go anywhere in here that you want, as long as I’m with you. I’ve got clearance.” He could have argued that there was no one there to enforce the rule, but that would probably freak them out. It’s better not to bring up how empty the place is. “There’s actually somewhere I wanted to take you, if you’re okay to go now.”

In a better world, he could give them a whole last-day party, like what he wished he could’ve given Noctis, but there isn’t much to see or do in the production facility, and not a lot that an MT would like. He has his snow clothes keeping them warmer than they’ve ever been, at least not in here. He has water, one of the few things that they can keep down. He drinks as much as he can swallow, because they got used to the minimum amount a body needs to survive and then none at all, so they think that every extra gulp is some huge indulgence. (In a while it’ll hit him, and he’ll need to go piss in the snow every ten minutes, but that won’t be their problem.) He doesn’t hurt them, which is the best thing of all, to an MT.

As he walks them through empty hallways, he’s pretty sure they’re happy, and that’s the whole point. It’s been a long time since he’s blamed them for what happened. What, were the MTs all supposed to magically fight off years of training, programming, and daemon fuckery, without anyone to save them, like he had? It was an impossible situation, he's accepted that. So why not be their savior now, since he’s probably the only person who can? They’re not hurting anybody, or doing much more than shuffling papers and screaming in their weird, distorted daemon way. He gets why it freaks other people out—they’re several years past the endless night, but people still worry about daemons coming back—but it’s harmless. All the MTs want is someone to notice them and help and tell them what to do.

The doors don’t swish open automatically anymore, wedged open with crates. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but he crawls over one and into the doorway leading outside, a quick path between sections of the facility. They’re about ready to do this.

It’s important to explain this next part. One MT had been so panicked when he tried to step outside that they had torn away control of his body, wrenching him back into the shade of the facility so abruptly that he’d sprained an ankle and had bruises on his ass for _weeks_. Sunlight is supposed to be a death sentence to MTs. It’s also the only way he’s gotten them to move on.

“The sunlight doesn’t hurt us anymore. They fixed it for me, so I’m safe to go out. Do you wanna come with me? I swear it’s safe.”

They do want to. Because Prompto’s a superior unit, because they do everything they’ve ever been told to do, because he gave them almost all of a full water bottle and touched their head in a way that wasn’t painful, and that’s some huge amazing gift, and someone so generous should be followed, right? By now, he knows the thought process, can almost hear it if he focuses really hard. It doesn’t make him angry anymore, just tired.

Once a month, he makes these trips, has been for years ever since he realized that ghosts existed outside of movies and games. It’s usually to MT facilities, and occasionally bases now turned into outposts and towns, and one time the abandoned husk of a crashed dropship. He hasn’t ever felt a ghost while traveling, though it felt like the ships had spat them out so frequently that there should have been a dead MT for every inch of Lucis. Was it human nature to drift back home, even if home was shitty and cold and cruel?

Once a month is his limit. The others probably wouldn’t let him vanish much more than that, and it’s not a full-time job anyway. He’s not sure how good of a...what did people call them? Mediums? Probably wouldn’t be a good _medium_ if he didn’t recharge himself with chocobo races and calloused hands against his own and documenting every golden hour like it’s the last one he’ll ever see. Prompto can’t convince the MTs of the joy and freedom in the world if he doesn’t get to experience any of it himself.

He always asks before stepping out, because their last experience in the living world shouldn’t be fear, but they’re happy still, a little nervous but with a clear _yes_ , so he walks into the snow, takes a deep breath, and pushes back his hood. He raises his face to the weak sunlight and lets them feel it for the first time.

That’s all he needs to do. It doesn’t feel like anything, other than kind of warm and whispery, but he can see a cloud of them drifting out of him and into the air. It’s not like the black color of a daemon turning into mist as the sun comes up, but silvery-white instead, almost the same color as the snow. As their mind pulls away from his, he tries to keep up a stream of reassurance. The sun isn't going to hurt you. This is what's supposed to happen. Bye.

And then they’re gone. Maybe put to rest, maybe allowed into whatever afterlife there is. His chest kind of pinches at the thought of Noctis getting to meet all the MTs he's sent on, all these sad hurt people with Prompto's face. It's a good pinch, though. Maybe some of those MTs would like to learn how to fish, if that's a thing that still happens after death. And if not Noct, then somebody else to help them learn how to... well, maybe not how to live, _considering_ , but how to be happy and free.

(Back in the day, he had never let himself think about whether MTs had souls, because that led to ‘Do _I_ have a soul?’ which wasn’t a fun path to start walking down. But he’s older now, and the terrifying existential questions of his 20-somethings have their edges worn off now that he’s on his way to 40.

Maybe he’s helping them remember that they actually had souls in them, buried far down. Maybe every MT had been born without a soul, and he had grown one from years of sunlight and being loved. Maybe every time he reaches out to a ghost, he helps them form a tiny soul of their own, enough to get them going out of the world. Or maybe they’re taking a little sliver of his, like how you could grow a succulent plant from a single leaf. Doesn’t really matter which of those is true, if any, so long as they get to be happy.

And if some Astral is standing at the doorway of the next world and turning them back for being “empty,” once he gets there himself he’s gonna fistfight a god. That, or send Noct after them for round two.)

He’s got enough food for a while longer, enough water. No one’s expecting him back for days. Maybe it’s the wind blowing around him, but he thinks he can hear something coming from inside, a high-pitched wail. Someone calling for help, lonely and unsure of what to do.

Prompto walks back into the First Magitek Production Facility and looks for another.

**Author's Note:**

> I got really sad about robots and New Years and this happened. I've never written anything for ffxv before and don't know if I will again (*ﾟｰﾟ)ゞ


End file.
